


The Tempest - Initiation

by jennserr



Category: Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, Fluff, Modern Girl in Mass Effect, Mostly Canon Compliant, Pre-Andromeda, Pre-Relationship, Slow Burn, Trans Female Character, cora harper is queer sorry i don't make the rules, give her time, is that a tag? it is now, it just takes her a bit to figure it out, the ryder family is a mess and we love them
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-22
Updated: 2018-11-22
Packaged: 2019-08-27 01:45:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16693039
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennserr/pseuds/jennserr
Summary: When USAF Captain Leah Riley signed up for a NASA-funded experiment in cryogenesis, she had very few expectations for what she'd wake up to.Being asked to join a privately-funded civilian expedition to colonize another galaxy was definitely not one of them.Nor was waking up 165 years later than scheduled.





	The Tempest - Initiation

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Tempest of Ink and Scars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13247664) by [jennserr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jennserr/pseuds/jennserr). 



_“What seest thou else_  
_In the dark backward and abysm of time?”_

 

* * *

  

 **Lyndon B. Johnson Space Centre, USA**  
**1 November 2018, 0836 local time**  
**Project Black Bear**  
**Phase 4, Human Trials Test 1**

  
Getting ready for a mission was generally fairly straightforward, Leah mused. As was going to see your doctor. Hell, really anything was when you got down to it. So why was it any different here?

Oh, right. Because usually mission prep and doctor’s visits never involved nearly as many tubes, wires, needles, and various other scientific equipment as were in the large room where Leah and about twenty other military personnel currently stood, being prepped by an equally large team of lab jockeys. They were quick to reassure the volunteers ( _Just call us test subjects_ , Leah thought to herself) that it would be over before they knew it—a short nap, a blink-and-it’s-over test, _just_  to make _absolutely certain_  that their tech worked in the longer term, just like it promised. They conveniently left out that last part every time the topic came up. According to them, the tech worked perfectly already. This was just to prove to the government that it did.

That’s what it always came down to, really. Getting and maintaining government funding was—despite the government’s love of funding the military and its organizations, even at the expense of important infrastructure—growing increasingly difficult for NASA as humanity gradually lost sight of the stars, even as strides were being made towards travel beyond Earth again. They knew it worked like a charm for non-sentient animals regardless of the length of time in stasis, and that it worked equally as well for humans in time periods of up to a few months. All their readings and tests indicated that it would operate just the same over longer periods of time, but they had yet to truly test it on humans—until now.

The first human trials of Phase 4, Leah’s group, would all be put in cryogenic stasis, some for six months, some for two years. When they’d eventually be thawed, the scientists would run countless tests on their bodies and brains to check that they were all still indeed themselves and didn’t show any damage or signs of aging. Then, once the brains were satisfied, they’d pat themselves on the back and send their test subjects on their merry way, with reminders that they would be following up with them in the future to see if anything changed.

It was a big commitment. _Huge._ One that paid very well, otherwise none of them would have even volunteered in the first place. For some, it was merely a way to skip a large chunk of a tour of service and still get paid. Others, it was more or less free cash—only requirement was to skip out on life for a bit by taking a long ass nap.

And now here they all were, being injected with some kind of anti-freezing agent so that the liquid in their systems wouldn’t turn to ice and burst, or however it worked. Their civvies and personal effects had been stowed away in lockers corresponding to their respective cryo chambers, and they each now wore matching clothes given to them for the duration of the experiment (read: while they were frozen). Made of a material similar to thermal wear, the shirts, pants, briefs, and athletic bras (for those who needed them) they had donned were of a simple style, and all matte black. The ensemble was joined by a pair each of what were called slippers but were more likely just hospital socks. None of it designed to keep them warm or anything, but better to have clothes that wouldn’t be damaged in the freezer than going in stark nude.

Lot of work just to take a long nap.

The lab tech—or nurse, Leah honestly couldn’t recall—finally withdrew the syringe from her arm and quickly covered the injection site with a patch of gauze. She was quick to remove that as well, replacing it with a dollop of ointment. “A clotting agent,” the short woman explained to Leah when she raised a questioning eyebrow. “Don’t want to have a bandage on for a whole year, do ya?”

Leah blinked at her. _I won’t even be conscious for any of that time, she wanted to say. It’s not like I’d even notice it_. “Thank you,” was what she said instead.

“Aand, with that, you are all set!” the woman—A. Brooks, according to her ID badge—announced with what Leah considered to be far more cheer than was reasonably necessary, punctuating the statement by lightly tapping her arm.

“How long does it take to, you know, take effect?” The injection itself had felt like any other—a brief sting as the needle pierced the skin, then a mild burning that slowly spread as the serum flooded into the muscle tissue.

“Oh, it’s a two-stage agent.”

“A what?”

Her smile never wavered. “Once you’re situated in your stasis chamber, you’ll be given an intravenous injection. It might sting a little, I’m told, but that’s what activates it.” _AKA, it’s gonna burn like a motherfucker._ “Once it has, the stasis sequence will be activated, and before you know it, you’ll be waking up to greet the new year.”

“Exciting.” Yawn.

Brooks turned to look at a wall-mounted clock hanging above the doorway at the far side of the room. “Right, they should be calling you all down at 0845, so you’ve got a few minutes to relax and let the serum work its way through you. Good luck!” She gave Leah a once-over, nodded to herself, then left to attend to whatever else it was that she did.

 _Better hope it works._ Leah pushed the thought to the back of her mind—it and others like it would serve her no good, not now, not when it was too late to back out even if she wanted to.

Unbidden, the memory of the conversation she’d had some nights ago with her brother surfaced in Leah’s mind, though ‘conversation’ was maybe a bit generous.

Lucas had always been one to look out for her. It was his job to—he was the Older Brother, even if only by 15 minutes. When they were kids, when she’d tried out for school sports even when they would never let her play for the team she wanted, when she’d started Basic and then gone on to OTS, he had always been there. Supporting her. Keeping her safe. Pushing her ever onward.

And now she was going to the one place he couldn’t follow, and that had scared him. For an entire year, he would know next to nothing about what was happening to his twin sister, his other half, other than that she’d be “asleep.” He’d tried to talk her out of it, several times since she’d initially signed up in fact, but even as he did so, Leah knew he understood why she was going through with it, even if he wouldn’t let himself see that.

It wasn’t until that talk, though, that he finally accepted her decision. He didn’t have to like it or agree with it, but she was his family, and he would do what he always had.

Her talks with Julie had gone somewhat better, though that wasn’t saying much. Julie had been even more hesitant than Lucas was, what with putting what they had between them on hold for a solid year, but she’d understood Leah’s reasons and knew that there wasn’t really any point trying to talk her out of it.

In the end, they’d both said the same thing to her to indicate their support.

Leah was jolted back to the present when a klaxon sounded in the room, followed by a man in a lab coat coming up to her and telling her it was time to go. She glanced up at the clock—0845. T-minus 15 minutes until taking the longest nap in the world.

She stood and joined the other volunteers as they all began to file out of the room and funnel down the hall towards the large room that housed their… the technical term was Suspended Animation Pod, but most everyone just called them freezers. The science of it had been explained to them several times, but all Leah had gotten out of it was that it would basically put their bodies on pause for however long the timer was set. No brain activity, no heartbeat, no activity even on the cellular level; no aging whatsoever. Step out of the pod the exact same as when you stepped in, give or take some disorientation as the effects wore off.

The walk to the testing chamber wasn’t far—they were still in the same building, one of the smaller facilities on the outskirts of JSC—but it was long enough that it gave each of them time to ponder what awaited them. Sure, they’d all seen the pods, and had all been briefed on stasis and revival procedures, but this was the first time they were _actually_  doing it, _actually_  going into stasis. Would it be quick, over before they could blink? Would it be a long, slow process? Painful, or painless? Would they feel any of it at all?

The reality of it finally started to sink in for some of them, Leah included. They were going through with this. About to become human popsicles and miss out on months, even years of life. What kind of world would they each wake up to? A world at peace, one at war, or one still in the same tentative half-conflict it had been embroiled in for several decades? Would any laws have been passed that would affect them for better or worse? What about advances in technology or medicine? Leah was personally holding out for that last one, though really, how much progress could be made in just a year?

 _Guess I’ll find out in a few hours,_ she mused.

At last, Leah and the others passed through a wide doorway and into the chamber where they’ll take the longest naps of their lives. It was exactly what Leah expected a cryogenic stasis testing room to look like—large, gleaming pods with so many wires hooked into each of them that they appear almost like futuristic jellyfish made from glass, metal, and whatever space-age metal alloys that NASA stuffed them with. Like one of the Sentinels from _The Matrix_ , only much less likely to suddenly become mobile and attack them. They lay horizontal in two rows that span most of the room, and Leah realized, now that she’s seeing more than just the one demo pod, why some of the lab techs call them ‘coffins’. And she’s seen more than enough of those in her five years of service to last a lifetime.

“Right this way, Miss Riley.” An aide made himself known as he appeared at her elbow, then set off down the room once he knew she’d heard him, missing the look Leah sent his way at his manner in addressing her even as she followed him. Footsteps echoed around her as the others were also directed to their pods, the sound oddly comforting in the confines of the room.

Within moments, she and the other volunteers were seated beside their respective freezers as the final preparations were made to both the humans and the pods they’d be sleeping in. The lids were opened (no pillows to be seen), everything was plugged in, and the big vein in Leah’s left elbow was stabbed with the injection port that would administer the catalyst once it was hooked up. She wasn’t looking forward to that part. She was directed to climb into the pod and lie down in it (they’d actually padded it somewhat, to Leah’s surprise) after being given the all-clear by her aide, and then, at exactly 0900 as planned, the second serum was injected into her bloodstream.

“This may cause some discomfort,” were the last words she heard.

The pain was unimaginable.

‘Discomfort’ was a gross understatement. The second it hit her veins, it took everything in her not to cry out at the burning agony that spread through her, and even then she wasn’t sure if she succeeded in that. It was everywhere; liquid fire that seared through her, burrowing into her very bones, her chest, her head, leaving nothing untouched in its blistering wake. Leah had no idea if the pain in her throat was because of the serum or because she was screaming—for all she knew it could have been both. She could barely hear anything over the roaring of her blood in her ears as the catalyst activated the other serum one agonizing second at a time.

_Please, God, let this be over soon._

A hiss of air above and around her, and then—

 

* * *

 

 **Theia Station, Sol System**  
**5 November 2184, 2316 local time**  
**Revival Attempt 182**

  
There was nothing. And there was everything. Minutes, hours, days could have passed—time had lost all meaning in this limbo between consciousness.

Drifting.

All was a void of eternal emptiness.

_“-hypothalamus. Standby.”_

A voice. Soft. But from where? There was nobody here. There wasn’t even a here to be.

_“Registering response. Histamine neurotransmitters eliciting reactions in brain stem and cerebral cortex. Standby.”_

The voice was everywhere, yet seeming to come from within…

Within _her._

_Leah._

She was _Leah Riley_. Her name came back to her then, as did several other things.

_“Brain activity increasing. Attempting to rouse consciousness.”_

What was happening? Was she waking up? She had to be. But they told her she wouldn’t be able to perceive anything in suspended animation. Not voices, not thoughts, not even the passage of time. So why was she now? Was the revival procedure supposed to be this slow?

And why was it so hard for her to do anything?

Leah grappled with her consciousness in much the same way one grapples with a lost bar of soap in the shower. Every time she thought she had a grasp of it, it slipped through her mental fingers, seeming further out of reach every time. But Leah was stubborn. She persisted, clawing her way forward, upward, whichever direction awareness was in this limbic space. And slowly, agonizingly slowly, she was able to pull it back to her.

_“Ryder, she is beginning to wake up.”_

A twitch. Movement. Something. She sensed it, _felt_  it. Tentatively, hesitantly, her conscious mind slipped back into its rightful place in her body, and suddenly she could feel…

 _“Awareness has spiked.”_ This time, she heard the voice twice—once in her mind, and again in a louder, spoken voice. And soon after, she heard another voice from around her.

“Are you _absolutely_  sure, SAM? What if this is just another false alarm?” The voice was masculine, gravelly. Tired.

_“Positive, Alec. She is able to hear you.”_

She could feel _everything._  Nerves that hadn’t seen use in a long time were being brought kicking and screaming back to reality, and Leah felt every second of it. Nothingness turned into pins and needles, which turned into sparks of sensation that quickly encompassed everything she was until she was drowning in it.

And then, light.

Sudden, blinding light, even through her closed eyelids, and she winced involuntarily, feeling the muscles of her face pull together. She tried to raise her right hand to shield her eyes, but found that it was resistant to being disturbed from its slumber.

“Careful, you haven’t used those muscles in a long time,” a gentler, feminine voice said from nearby.

Leah finally found her voice, though that was being generous. “I guess a year is a… a pretty long time to… not move,” she managed.

“Just take your time, Captain,” the male voice from before said. “Let the rest of you finish waking up.”

Her nerve endings thankfully decided that then would be a good time to settle down, and Leah was able to finally focus on things other than the fact that, yes, she was awake. Things like what she could feel, now that her body wasn’t feeling everything equally and she could start to make sense of things—she was laying down on something firm, neither hard nor cold, and was covered from neck to toe by a thin blanket on top of the thermal wear she had on when she went under a year ago. If Leah had to guess, she’d say that she was on a medical exam table, or maybe a gurney. She was flat on her back with something that felt suspiciously like a pillow beneath her head, so really it could be either. She wouldn’t know until she opened her eyes.

Experimentally, then with more confidence, she wiggled her toes and fingers, enjoying the pleasant sensation that came with finally stretching muscles that had been in place for far too long. Was it supposed to feel like this after stasis? Probably, she suspected. After all, their entire bodies had essentially been frozen, and the ‘thawing’ process probably took a lot longer than the ‘freezing’.

Leah shivered involuntarily at the memory of the process. Phantom pains ran up her veins as she recalled her last waking moments. She grit her teeth, then took a deep breath through her nose. The feeling of her chest rising and falling as the air filled her lungs was enough to distract her from the past, and she focused on that for a moment.

Eventually, she figured she’d try opening her eyes. The light that had before been so blinding even through her closed eyes now seemed much dimmer, and Leah felt that she had enough of a grasp of her faculties that the process wouldn’t pose any more of a problem than if she were waking up from a normal sleep cycle. It took her a moment to figure out just how exactly to do that—her body felt almost sluggish in its responses—but she soon cracked her eyes open just enough to be able to adjust to the light in the room, then gradually wider as they did.

The first image she saw in the new year wasn’t really all that much—just two large, shapeless blobs against a backdrop of white. After a few seconds, and some blinking, the blurry shapes above her resolved into the forms of a man and woman, neither of whom were familiar to her. Not that she really expected them to be, but the thought ran through her head regardless.

From what she could currently see—which, admittedly, was not all that much—both of them looked to be in their middle ages, the man on her right much more obviously so than the woman on her left. He was definitely past his prime; a shock of unkempt salt-and-pepper hair sat atop a lined, tanned face, one somewhat obscured by an equally unkempt beard. Every inch of him looked tired, weary of the troubles of the world, but for his eyes. Those, Leah could tell, hid a deep intelligence behind their piercing grey depths.

The woman to her left had a much gentler look about her, one that was quick to set Leah’s mind at ease. Short, dark hair framed her darker-toned face, and warm blue eyes peeked out from under long bangs swept to one side. She showed far fewer visible signs of age than the man did, but if Leah looked just closer, she could see they were present. Not that she’d say that out loud, of course.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” The man smiled wryly down at her, earning him a glare from the woman across from him and an attempt at a glare from Leah, though it didn’t have quite the same effect with her eyes still half-closed.

“That was terrible,” she rasped. Her mouth felt very suddenly like she had just woken up after a night of heavy drinking with her squad and some of the other officers—dry, heavy, and full of cotton. Leah licked her lips. “Water?”

The woman disappeared from Leah’s field of view for a moment, then came back holding something in her hands. “We can only give you this for now while you’re lying down.” She opened her hands to reveal a cotton swab, or a gauze pad, then reached out to place it on Leah’s tongue. To Leah’s surprise, it had been soaked in water—enough to wet her mouth and throat without worry of accidentally swallowing any down the wrong pipe. Once all the water had been leeched from it, Leah did her best to work it out of her mouth so that it could be disposed of.

“Now, we need to run through some basic diagnostics with you. Make sure your body and mind still work after being in cryo for so long.”

She nodded. “Makes sense.”

“We’ll start with the basics,” the woman said. “What is your full name and birth date?”

“Leah Amanda Riley, birth date January first, 1995.”

“Good. And your rank?”

“Captain, Special Tactics officer, United States Air Force. Need my service number too?” She grinned.

“I think we’re good,” the woman replied. “I’m going to have you do some basic motor control exercises now, can you manage?”

Leah nodded.

They were simple and straightforward—tapping her thumb and fingers together, wiggling her toes, nothing special. Going through the motions, as it were. It was surprisingly difficult at first. Supposedly they shouldn’t have experienced any muscle atrophy, given that their bodies would essentially be frozen in time, but it sure didn’t feel that way to Leah. Her digits, limbs, joints—indeed, every part of her—felt like lead until she’d worked whatever part of her enough to regain a semblance of normal. Maybe that was just the revival process though. Maybe it was just muscle stiffness. Whatever it was, she sure hoped it would pass soon.

Once they gave her the okay, she made to sit up. It took time, given that every muscle in her body seemed quite content to go back to not moving at all and protested loudly when she moved anyway, but she eventually managed, with help, to push herself into a sitting position with her legs hanging over one side. The action left her feeling faint.

“Is it normal to feel this weak?” she asked aloud.

“You _have_ just woken up,” the man reminded her. “It’s expected after any period of time spent in stasis.”

“We can get you some food soon if you’d like.”

“And coffee.”

Leah grimaced. “I don’t think I need the mental stimulant. I… actually feel pretty alert,” she finished, surprised to find that it was true. “An energy bar, though…”

The woman appeared in front of her with a packaged nondescript bar, which she handed to Leah.

“Can you chew and move?”

Leah arched an eyebrow.

“There are some more exercises I would like you to do before we clear you that involve moving your limbs. Can you eat while doing that?”

“Oh. Yeah. Yes.”

It was stretches this time, testing the range of motion in her joints to ensure everything was as it should be. As before, Leah passed with flying colours, though something niggled at her mind.

Since waking up, she had not seen a single person aside from the two who woke her. No sign of the owner of the first voice she heard upon waking up, or of the other volunteers or scientists who had taken part in the experiment. Yet no mention had been made to them by either the man or the woman in front of her.

And that wasn’t all. The few times that Leah had looked around the room she was in, she got the distinct impression that it wasn’t the room they were all supposed to be waking up in. The walls, ceiling, and floor were all a gleaming gunmetal grey, which wasn’t unusual in itself, but the exposed pipes and conduits that she could see all had decorative filigree alongside them of what appeared to be stylized plants and water motifs. And if that wasn’t odd enough, the room seemed to sort of… tilt ever so slightly, which Leah very much hoped was a design choice and not, in fact, a sign that the ceiling could collapse on them any minute.

She’d only been in a handful of rooms in JSC before going under, but Leah was almost certain that this wasn’t a part of the main campus. Which had troubling implications.

“Where am I?” she asked the woman, who at present was shining a pen light into her right eye.

The woman, whose name Leah still did not know, paused, then clicked the pen light off and straightened up with a sigh.

“I think it’s best if I answered that question,” said the man from somewhere behind Leah.

She turned to look at him, confusion evident on her features. “Is it really so hard to give someone a straight answer? When did everyone get so cryptic?”

“It’s really only him,” the woman commented.

The man continued before Leah could respond. “To answer your initial question, you’re on Theia Station, in the Sol system.” He paused. “You’ve been asleep, Captain. For over a hundred and fifty years.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yes, i totally stole that last line from the end of the Captain America movie, so sue me, but it fit _so fucking well_ i just had to. anyway, there it is folks! rather than update any of my current works, i decided to finish up editing the first chapter of this new work and post it! (as you can see, i'm great at managing my time.) 
> 
> i've actually been working on this for a few months, but never felt like i was ready to post any of it until recently. i have no guarantee on when the next chapter of this will be posted, as i'm in the process of rewriting it, and between this project and four others my attention is somewhat divided, but posting this is my way of ensuring i don't forget about it.
> 
> also, big shoutout to my beta reader Troy for helping me get this rolling. couldn't've done it without you my man


End file.
